Ordinarily, Monday’s are a slow, slow news days. Today, there is quite a bit to talk about, so without any further ado I shall jump straight into it.

Tomas Rosicky, a player we’ve all come to love since his resurgence, is – or at least, should – be staying at Arsenal. Even though he’s 33-years-old and Arsene is known to be dubious about handing contracts to players of that age, but it would appear the manager is very keen to keep Tomas on at Arsenal. Arsene said:

“Tomas Rosicky will stay. We have an agreement with him and it will come out soon,

“I am absolutely adamant he has to stay at the club.”

“He is maybe one of the players who plays the game of give and move, is a great accelerator of the game,

“When the ball comes to him it is ‘boof’. It is second gear now and that is something I admire in him.

Those are some pretty concrete words. There isn’t much in the way of a grey area and I’m glad. The sentiment about his ability to drastically quicken play is very accurate. He presence alone adds a sense of urgency to the manner in which Arsenal pass the ball, and there is no better example of his ability to do this than his goal on Saturday.

We missed his best years because of injury troubles. However, that lengthy period seems to have prolonged his career. Rosicky doesn’t play like a footballer winding down in his career before considering hanging up his boots. He has the enthusiasm and drive of someone years younger and when that’s coupled with a wealth of European, domestic and international football experience, his presence around the club can only be beneficial – both to teammates and the younger generation who look up to him.

The same article has a few quotes from Jack Wilshere regarding Mesut Ozil. I have to say it’s a great pity our players feel the need to publicly speak and offer words of praise for Ozil given his recent share of vitriol. Mesut has had his share of detractors, and whilst I don’t dispute criticism is justified and warranted in certain respects, the extent to which some go undoubtedly is not. Jack said:

“Mesut is fine, he is a great character. He is friends with everyone around the place,

“He has got a dead leg which is not nice, but he was in the dressing room helping the boys, talking to everyone, telling me and the other boys where to go (in midfield).

“He is a great talent and is up there with the best in the world and he will be all right.”

Very true words. Ozil will be fine, and when all this silliness blows over and his form begins to pick up, people will start to realise that we have one of the best midfielders in the world in our ranks.

I shall finish today with something totally unpleasant. Before I begin, what follows is not aimed at Stoke or the majority of the fans of Stoke City, just a select few. With the weekends fixture, elements of that fanbase have seen fit to reignite certain fires, specifically their disdain for Aaron Ramsey.

What exactly has Ramsey done, other than have his leg broken by a lumbering, talentless cretin? Nothing. He didn’t respond to Shawcross’ attempts to apologise? I can’t say I blame him. When some painfully moronic individual comes steaming through the halfway line to make an unnecessarily “competitive” challenge that results in a horrific injury to one of their players, I wonder how forgiving they will be. I’d hazard a guess it isn’t very.

Yet, certain Stoke fans plan to boo Ramsey – even if he won’t be there – and make a point of spewing vile hatred becuase Arsenal can’t seem to “let go”. Perhaps that has something to do with their similarly despicable actions in previous fixtures – those fans are an absolute disgrace to both football and humanity and should be shot into the sun where they can’t bother anyone again. It truly disgusts me that they feel such animosity to a player who has wronged them in absolutely no way at all. Aaron has never bad mouthed Stoke, their fans or even Shawcross. He has just got on with it since.

Like I said; I wouldn’t wish to taint all fans of Stoke with the same brush as the painfully stupid folk that come up with such dross. That wouldn’t be fair. All football teams posses a few fans that take things too far, but the actions of those Stoke fans defies belief. Part of me is glad Aaron will miss the trip, the other part sees it as a great shame he will, as nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see him score the winner.

But I’m just ranting here, folks. I shouldn’t, as all it does is offer greater exposure to stupidity that should be ignored. I’m a touch hot-headed and not known for rationalising until after having done something pointless or silly. My advice to you reading this is simple; don’t give any of these idiots the satisfaction of reacting. Leave that kind of thing to idiots like me.

That’s all for today, folks. The comments await your thoughts on the topics discussed and I’ll look forward to taking a moment to read some. Tomorrow I shall return with more. With Liverpool winning yesterday, the race for the title is hotting up and there isn’t much between the top 4 teams. I shall be taking a bit of time to have a look at how the race for glory might pan out.

10 Responses

N85says:

Well… nicely said. I seriously do not understand the act of stupidity from some stoke fans… However, I hope sooner or later they realise that what they do is encourage bone breaking nitwits. Personally am not a fan to criticize players, I believe that’s the job of the coach. I honestly look out for the best, and I believe any mistake from a player is not intentional, I can only hope that he learns and understand that much is expected. I only see Ozil getting better… Good one to have Roza, I have been looking forward to a giglick gooner!

Just came to say that I had one of the weirdest dreams last night. In my dream, you allowed me to use your blog and your twitter-account to make a surprise party for my wife’s birthday. While I was preparing that party, I completely screwed up both your blog and twitter so you had to open a new one. I had started deleting all my personal data from the internet in order to avoid a law-suit before I woke up.

Funny thing: your new account in my dream had a cover-photo of you on the stage for some sort of X-factor-like crappy reality show. If Simon Cowell had been there, it would have been the worst nightmare ever since the one in The Elm Street.

fazjac_debrasays:

Optimist Habilasays:

I like the way you say the truth always, James. Most Arsenal fans erroneously think Mesut, because he cost the club 42 million pounds or so, must win them all the trophies around in his first season. They expect him to play all games 90 minutes and win the MoM. To them if Arsenal lose its because of Mesut. Infact if Arsenal fail to win the UCL, FA and EPL they will call Mesut all names.
They are the distractors and the destroyers.